[The fact that the video above is a "Ron Paul for President" ad makes it art.]

Sorry, Ms. Reid. The we hit peak hypocrisy around the time the Newt Gingrich was thundering our pious jeremiads and leading torch-wielding mobs of wingnuts against Bill "History's Greatest Monster" Clinton by day...

...while cheating on his second wife with his third mistress by night.

After being run out of office thanks to a serendipitous alignment of ethics violations and a Republican Party in love with the gastronomic pleasures of eating its own, Mr. Gingrich went on to a long and profitable career as a grifting, bomb-throwing, racist monster, excrete of unreadable slabs of prose, trusted Beltway Insider, perennial also-ran presidential candidate, adviser to President Stupid, altar at which Shelly Adelson periodically burns his walking-around-money, and, of course --

Advocate of civilization

Definer of civilization

Teacher of the rules of civilization

Arouser of those who form civilization

Organizer of the pro-civilization activists

Leader (possibly) of the civilizing forces.

-- before landing as the First Gentleman of the American ambassador to the Vatican.

Image from: @bluegal

None of which would have been possible if American corporate media -- especially Ms. Reid's employers at NBC -- had not made it its mission to rehabilitate Mr. Gingrich's public reputation after each public relations disaster, no matter what and no questions asked, over and over and over again.

The fact that American corporate media was stakehorsing ("A financial backer who covers the gambling losses of a pool player in exchange for some percentage of the winnings.") this grifting fraud for the last 20 years --

-- became so obvious and the pattern of their collusion became so predictable that I started documenting it under the heading of "The Gingrich Rules".

In the game of professional punditry there also clearly exists a special set of rules designed with one person on mind. Or, rather, one sort of person: Conservatism's parade of bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting bottom feeders. That breed which makes their daily bread from grifting the Pig People by generating an endless flood of books, magazine articles, broadcasts, speeches and videos all telling the GOP base over and over again that them their bigotries are noble and their paranoia is patriotic.

Of course, part of the downside of wallowing in the wingnut sewer and trafficking in slander and lies is that, sooner or later, you become a toxic mess. Your stink becomes unacceptable to the general public, which s where the Sunday morning talk shows -- the Mouse Circus -- comes in. Because despite having long ago devolved into a sinkhole of Beltway centrist twaddle, it is still viewed by altogether too many people as a bastion of Very Serious people -- it's the strip-mall of political opinion where casual shoppers go to feel smart and validated.

And so a bargain is struck; the bottom feeders deliver a temporary hike in the only thing these show's owners really care about -- audience share -- and, in exchange for being teevee friendly and keeping the worst of their batshit crazy on a leash for a few minutes, their Mouse Circus deburrs the bottom feeders' public image, replates and burnishes their credibility and temporarily transfuses them with Seriousness, which can then be redeemed at ten times its face value back among the Pig People.

And in the key to that bargain we find "The Gingrich Rules": an agreement that the moderator will never, ever ask the bomb-throwing, hate-mongering, race-baiting goon sitting directly across from them a single question about their bomb-throwing, hate-mongering or race-baiting activities. Instead they will be represented to the public merely as a Conservative commentator or talk radio host or pundit who, at worst, might be known for some "controversial" opinions, which the moderator will never bothers to explicate...

I see now that at least one of the reasons the American corporate media kept dunking Gingrich's career in the Lazarus Pit and bringing it back life over and over again was the same reason that doomsday preppers stockpile seeds and ammunition. So if SHTF Day ever came and a racist halfwit orange Republican fire demon was ever elected president, Gingrich would be ready and waiting to be swept into his orbit, thus giving the American corporate media a ready-made "insider" who was already beholden to them and who would obligingly dispense quotable quotes on demand.

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